Dying to be on her own terms: patient-centered care

The real art of palliative care is putting patient and family right in the center, said Dan Johnson, a Kaiser Permanente Colorado doctor and an expert on end-of-life care.

With the Baby Boomers turning 65 this year, it’s time to think about the imminent changes to traditional retirement and continuing care facilities that offer assisted living, memory care and other services for the aging.

This essay by a health foundation executive with terminal cancer argues that palliative care *is* patient-centered care — that surgery and aggressive treatment are not necessarily the best course of action. Under our current system, health care expenses routinely are stratospheric in the last six to 12 months of life.

Can we afford for that sort of spending to continue? If you were in the final months of your life, would you want chemotherapy, surgeries and extreme measures? This article might make you think twice.